kevin jennings

On today's installment of "Faith and Freedom Radio," Mat Staver and Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel/Liberty University discussed the passage of marriage equality legislation in New York, which they used as an opportunity to attack Kevin Jennings and claim that groups like GLSEN and PFLAG encourage five year-old children to have sex with one another and even support pederasty and child sexual abuse. 

Barber eventually warned that "when we shake our fist against God and rebel against him," as the legislature did in New York, it was only a matter of time before we suffered the consequences:

It took me just about two hours to make it through "The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism - And Why We Must Take a Stand" which pretty much tells you all you need to know about this vapid amalgamation of right-wing cliches that Kern cobbled together and tried to pass off as a book.

Kern's book reads like a greatest hits collection of right-wing talking points as she fear-mongers about everything from Kevin Jennings to ENDA to the Department of Homeland Security while mixing in references to the works of David Barton, David Horowitz and even full-blown Christian Reconstructionists like Gary DeMar.

[As it turns out, Kern more or less has Barton to thank for turning her into a national pariah as it was at one of his Wallbuilders ProFamily Legislators Conference that she first learned about the insidious homosexual agenda that was a bigger threat to this nation than terrorism and decided to begin speaking out against it.]

In the book, Kern claims that her original statement was poorly worded and then taken out of context and misrepresented ... and she then proceeds to clarify by saying the very same thing:

One of the snippets from my now infamous speech that has been replayed endlessly by my critics on the Left is the sentence in which I say that the homosexual lifestyle and its agenda are "a greater threat than terrorism." If I hadn't been in such a hurry to hit all my points, I would have elaborated on that thought in a way that wouldn't have left me so open to outrage and demagoguery ...

Terrorists seem to do damage to our nation and to its people. Yet we, the American people, are bringing the wholesale destruction of our nation upon ourselves as we wholeheartedly embrace homosexuality, a lifestyle proven to be dangerous and deadly. We are currently very vigilant against the terrorist threat against us. We seem oblivious to this more pervasive inner decay.

My hope and prayer is that this book and the hate-storm I've been through will in some way help to change that dangerous complacency.

I haven't felt this cheated by a Religious Right author since Matt Barber conned me out of $30 by surreptitiously stitching together a bunch his columns and then selling it as a book.

According to the Des Moines Register, Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum will take part in Iowa’s Tea Party Bus Tour. The bus tour is led by a coalition of right-wing groups: the Leadership Institute, FairTax Nation, and the American Principles Project’s affiliated groups, Preserve Innocence and American Principles in Action.

Founded by noted anti-gay activist Robert George, the group is also closely linked to the Manhattan Declaration and the National Organization for Marriage, which it worked with to defeat marriage equality in Maine. Thomas Peters, the APP’s communications director, even participated in a conference tied to the notoriously anti-Semitic Polish broadcaster Tadeusz Rydsyk of Radio Maryja.

The APP is best known for instigating the boycott of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference due to its inclusion of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives, and rallied other Religious Right organizations to leave the summit.

Preserve Innocence is the APP’s education watchdog and is mainly a voice against comprehensive sex education and anti-bullying programs. The group outspokenly opposed the role of Kevin Jennings, the White House’s outgoing Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools and the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, asserting that his views represent a “moral atrocity”:

Kevin Jennings aggressively advocates using our schools to teach children—including young children—about homosexuality and homosexual practices. He is the author of a Foreword to a book called Queering Elementary Education, and as the former Director of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network), he supports a radical agenda that includes bringing sexual liberationist teachings into public schools. That’s what he means by “queering” elementary education.

“Queering” our elementary schools means destroying the innocence of our children. Please help us to stop that moral atrocity from happening.

The APP also bizarrely claims that President Obama was establishing “death panels” and working with Planned Parenthood to encourage students to have abortions:

“There is a frightening disconnect between what American parents believe their children should be taught about sex and by whom, and the liberal, even promiscuous sex education the Obama administration wishes to inflict upon our children through Planned Parenthood”, stated Andy Blom, Executive Director of the American Principles Project and American Principles in Action. “But this goes beyond sex education. This is opening the doors of our schools and their health programs to the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

…

President Obama’s Health Care plan threatens babies through Government mandated, taxpayer funded abortion. It threatens parental rights, pre-teens and teenagers through Planned Parenthood SBHC sex indoctrination. It threatens the elderly and disabled through rationed health care and end-of-life “Death Panels.”

As we noted last week, Bryan Fischer has made it his new cause in life to prove that "the number one class of people who are committing hate crimes today are homosexual activists."

Fischer bases this idea upon a definition of a hate crime that he took off us USLegal.com, which reads:

"A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability."

Fischer has seized upon the phrases "harassment" and "religion" and is now basically using them to declare anything and everything he doesn't like to be a "hate crime."

Last week it was situation with Peter Vidmar, who stepped down from his position with the 2012 U.S. Olympic team over his support for Proposition 8, and today is it some case involving a doctor in England:

If facing harassment because others have prejudice against your religion is a hate crime, then Dr. Richard Scott of the U.K. is the latest victim of the P.C. police.

He is facing an official sanction from the professional medical body in England, the General Medical Council (GMC) for having the effrontery to suggest to a patient that nurturing his spiritual life might be one part of a holistic course of treatment.

It makes no difference to the Tolerance Nazis that study after study has shown the beneficial health effects of faith in God and prayer, or that Dr. Scott only broached the subject with this patient after a lengthy consultation, and after medical checks had been performed and referrals for further care were arranged.

Nope, the Torquemadas of the left want to put Dr. Scott on the rack and punish him despite his unblemished 28-year record and despite the fact the patient in question is still seeking care at his clinic and so himself is apparently not criminally offended in the least.

This case doesn't even have anything to do with gays, so Fischer is now claiming that it is "secular fundamentalists" who are committing this particular hate crime.

The interesting thing about this new development is that Fischer intentionally overlooks the other elements of the definition of a hate crime, most notably the listing of "sexual orientation."

And given that, in Fischer's view, basically any criticism or pressure put on any conservative or Christian is "harassment" and therefore a "hate crime," let us point out that Fischer and the AFA led the charge to fire Kevin Jennings and impeach Judge Vaughn Walker, solely because they were gay:

AFA calls for resignation of Kevin Jennings, “Safe and Drug Free Schools” head

The American Family Association today called for the resignation of Kevin Jennings, the head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the Department of Education.

“This man is not a good role model for the nation’s children, nor will he fairly represent all Americans due to his spiteful attitude toward evangelical Christians,” said AFA President Tim Wildmon.

Time to impeach Judge Vaughn Walker

Contact your representative today and urge him to start impeachment proceedings

August 5, 2010

Yesterday (August 4), U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker single-handedly overturned California's Prop. 8, which elevated protection for one-man, one-woman marriage to its state constitution.

...

Judge Walker's ruling is not "good Behaviour." He has exceeded his constitutional authority and engaged in judicial tyranny.

Judges are not, in fact, unaccountable. They are accountable to Congress, which can remove them from office.

Impeachment proceedings, according to the Constitution, begin in the House of Representatives. It's time for you to put your congressman on record regarding the possible impeachment of Judge Walker.

If Peter Vidmar stepping down and some foreign doctor facing possible discipline are examples of "hate crimes," what just what is the AFA prolonged and orchestrated campaign to get two gay public servants fired from the jobs?

And can I point out that Islam is also a "religion" ... and Fischer has been leading a full-blown crusade against Muslims for years now.

So by Fischer's own standard, he is personally guilty of committing hate crimes on a daily basis. 

Conservative activist Alan Caruba usually works as a shill for corporations and is the former communications director of the American Policy Committee, which staunchly opposes environmental protections and the United Nations. Instead of criticizing regulations on businesses, Caruba yesterday launched a tirade against the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act, calling marriage equality “an act of societal suicide” and the administration’s decision “a stealth attack on the nation.” He also derided the Obama administration for bringing the “homosexual agenda” in schools, appointing Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, and repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

I have always thought that "gay" was an odd choice of words to describe homosexuals because those whom I have known rarely evinced much happiness about being regarded by the rest of society as aberrations. They may have made their personal peace with it, but the notion that a society based on heterosexuality should regard them as "normal" defies logic.

Granting homosexuals the right to marry is an act of societal suicide. I will cite some examples below.

In late February, the White House and its Department of Justice announced that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. It is a warning of moral decay that America has reached a point where it requires a law to assert this definition, recognized from the dawn of civilization, of mankind itself.

…

This is giving parents fits, but it was President Obama who installed Kevin Jennings as the White House "safe schools" czar in the Department of Education even though Jennings is a major homosexual activist who has pushed the homosexual agenda in the nation's schools. Jennings, prior to his appointment, was the founder and executive director of the nationwide Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to a lifetime position as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court despite her activism as Dean of the Harvard Law School during which she expelled military recruiters over the Armed Forces' ban on homosexuals. She called it a "moral injustice of the first order." She was known for recruiting homosexual activists to the school's faculty such as the former ACLU lawyer, William Rubenstein, to teach "queer" legal theory and elevated an outspoken lesbian professor, Janet Halley. She encouraged Harvard students to get involved in homosexual activist legal work.

These White House appointments are just one part of what millions of Americans have come to realize as measures taken to undermine the nation's moral authority, its legal system, its economy, its military strength and defense, and its energy security.

In 2012 Americans will clean house in the White House and the Congress, electing men and women who understand that homosexuality is an unfit condition for marriage, for service in the military, and that its justification in the states and the courts is a stealth attack on the nation.

Last year, a new Religious Right organization was formed to fight the "satanic wickedness" that was engulfing America. Calling itself the Faith and Freedom Institute, the group held a sparsely-attended press conference/prayer rally and then ... who knows ... we stopped paying attention to them.

But now they are back, picking up on the Religious Right's latest bogus crusade against President Obama for supposedly using the phrase "freedom of worship" instead of "freedom of religion." 

And just because it's entirely false, the Faith and Freedom Institute isn't about to let that stop them from sending a letter to Obama demanding that he publicly "retract" all previous uses of the phrase and cease all future one:

It is with great concern that we have watched your rhetorical shift in terminology, choosing to use the phrase “freedom of worship” rather than “freedom of religion.” We’ve noted your use of that phrase (“freedom of worship”) at the Ft. Hood memorial service in November of 2009, as well as your utilization of the same during speeches in Japan and China.

While some may deem the words “worship” and “religion” to be synonymous, and thus interchangeable, they are most definitely not! The First Amendment of the United States Constitution uses the word “religion” and states unequivocally that Congress cannot prohibit the “free exercise” of said “religion.” Your use of the word “worship” implies that we have freedom ONLY within the confines of structures set aside for religious expression (i.e. churches, synagogues, etc.). This is not only a gross departure from the original intent of the First Amendment, but is also the first step toward eliminating faith expression in the public marketplace (i.e. display of religious symbols on public land, printing of religious materials for the purpose of evangelizing, public discussion of faith, etc.).

Mr. President, we call on you to retract all past use of this incorrect and misleading phrase, “freedom of worship,” and cease all future use of the same. We also call on you to acknowledge America’s Christian heritage as is clearly evidenced in our Founding Documents and the overwhelming abundance of statements from our Founding Fathers.

But on the off chance that doesn't work, it looks like the group has a back-up plan - impeachment: 

According to Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, the President of the United States “shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” It is the opinion of the members of The Faith and Freedom Institute that the current President of the United States of America, Barack H. Obama, has compiled a number of personal offenses that qualify him for impeachment from the office of the presidency. Among those offenses are the following:

A. The act of not providing a clear copy of his official and complete birth certificate indicating that he is a natural born citizen of the United States of America as is called for in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution where it reads, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States…shall be eligible to the office of the President.”

B. The act governing contrary to the spirit of the Constitution by the establishing of numerous “czars” who have no accountability to Congress, but who answer to the President alone.

C. The act of subverting United States sovereignty by bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia.

D. The intrusive act of confiscating private industry, (i.e., the take over of General Motors Corporation, Chrysler, and Bank of America – even dictating employees salaries), thereby making them accountable to the President alone.

E. The incessant desire to develop a civilian militia or military style organization that would be “as well funded and organized as the United States military,” to operate exclusively at the discretion of the President.

F. The overt attempt to force national health care on businesses and individuals, who oppose such, through creating a public health care option that would place individual insurance companies in competition with the United States Government.

G. The act of disregarding the law of the United States of America by not publicly recognizing the National Day of Prayer which was signed into law in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman.

H. The act of appointing to high level positions persons of questionable integrity who display treasonous animosity toward the United States (i.e., Van Jones, former “Environmental Czar”; Kevin Jennings, “Safe School Czar”; FCC head Mark Lloyd, etc.) and whose actions violate the letter and spirit of our national philosophy.

I. The act of violating the oath of the presidency by neglecting to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

TFFI actually issued this impeachment demand in October of last year. So I guess that'll teach us to ignore them, especially now that we see that Faith and Action's Rob Schenck will be speaking at TFFI's upcoming conference in September.

• The Eagle Forum is no longer calling judges "judicial activists": they are now "judicial reconstructionists."
• Former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode has reportedly joined the Constitution Party.
• The AFA's Bryan Fischer claims that the fact that the White House didn't use the phrase "year of our Lord" in a proclamation declaring Jewish Heritage Month proves that the US is a Christian nation.
• The Susan B. Anthony List launched a $30,000 radio ad campaign targeting Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) "on his retreat from his pro-life stance in the final hours of the healthcare debate."
• They may call them "love offerings," but the government calls it "tax evasion."
• Finally, the right-wing campaign against Kevin Jennings continues, leading to this dowright bizarre press release from Citizens for Community Values.

Today, the Liberty Counsel released a "72-page report today detailing information on each of the nominations and appointments of President Barack Obama" with the aim of exposing just how "radical" this administration has been:    

This report documents the beliefs, words, and actions of the radical group Obama has hand-picked to “change” our nation. The document provides information on more than 100 of Obama’s appointments and nominations. It includes more than 850 citations to articles, websites, and cases regarding these individuals and took weeks to compile.

...

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “President Obama has nominated and appointed the most radical group of ideologues ever assembled by an American President. The list of individuals, their comments, and backgrounds demonstrates that President Obama uses a radical ideological litmus test to select his nominees, which clearly takes preference over experience or qualifications. Obama’s nominations are neither moderate nor merely left of center. They can best be described as radical. They are clearly out of touch with all but a radical fringe. Obama’s pattern of choosing radical ideologues raises serious concern about the competency of the government.”

The report itself [PDF] contains all of the standard right-wing attacks on people like Kevin Jennings, Chai Feldblum, Dawn Johnsen, and David Ogden (whom it claims "supports abortion on demand, child pornography, and the homosexual agenda") but also covers people like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and even Tom Daschle. 

Oddly, for a report aimed at proving that President Obama has filled his administration with "radical ideologues," it dedicates an inordinate amount of space to covering arcane appointees who seemingly have no ideology at all:

Earl Devaney
o Appointed: Head of the White House's Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board – February, 2009.
o Former police officer, Secret Service Agent, Inspector General of Department of the Interior, and head of EPA’s Enforcement Division.
o Currently tasked with monitoring spending of the administration's $787 billion stimulus plan.

Why Liberty Counsel saw fit to include Devaney among the list of Obama's "radical" appointments is anyone's guess - and the same goes for John Laub and Stephen Smith:

John H. Laub
o Appointed: Director of the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice – October, 2009.
o Career academic, focusing on criminology, juvenile delinquency, and juvenile justice.

Stephen James Smith
o Appointed: United States Marshal for the Southern District of Georgia – September, 2009.

For page after page, Liberty Counsel lists people like Kim N. Wallace ("Managing Director and head of the Washington Research Group at Barclays Capital") and Ashton Carter ("Former Chair of the International & Global Affairs faculty at the Kennedy School") as if it demonstrates that the Obama administration is filled with radicals when it does nothing of the sort.

Take, for instance, this listing: 

Rosanna Malouf Peterson
o Appointed: United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington – October, 2009.
o First female judge on the bench for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Washington.
o Former president of the Federal Bar Association for Eastern Washington and the Woman Lawyers State Bar Association.
o Practiced general litigation, employment and education law, as well as criminal defense at several private law firms in Spokane.

Apparently, Peterson is one of those "radical ideologues" whose nomination "raises serious concern about the competency of the government" ... which is why her nomination was confirmed by the Senate 89-0 two days ago.

• Pam's House Blend reports that Oklahoma's Sally Kern is trying to make it harder to get divorced in her state.
• Good As You covers Mike Heath's recent appearance on Wallbuilders Radio.
• Richard Pombo is back and TMP provides a look back at his ethical troubles.
• Steve Benen notes that Michele Bachmann's anti-Census crusade could potentially end up costing her her seat in Congress.
• Joe.My.God takes great pleasure in the fact that Glenn Beck is at war with the Birthers.
• Towleroad reports that marriage equality in Iowa is safe, at least for this year.
• Finally, Alvin McEwen exposes the latest nonsense from Cliff Kincaid, who claims that the outcry over Uganda's anti-gay bill is all part of a conspiracy to save Kevin Jennings.